Monday, April 29, 2013

Can’t find a link to it on The National Post’s website,
but what appears to be a 2010 article by Ian Hunter (that appears here)
contains large swaths virtually identical to one by the same author in the Globe
and Mail today.

Is that filler behind the pay wall?

National
Post 2010:…no one can deny that the kilt is an impressive rig-out…a scenic
contribution to social intercourse. On any occasion, however formal, the
smartest dress remains the kilt.

Globe
and Mail 2013:No one could deny that the kilt
is an impressive rig-out… a scenic contribution to social intercourse. On any
occasion, however formal, the smartest dress remains the kilt.…

National
Post 2010:In recent years
some Scottish kilt-for-hire companies have imposed a new restriction;
specifically, customers are forbidden to (as it is said) “go regimental,” which
means following the ancient custom of wearing nothing under the kilt. One
kilt-maker has written a clause into their lease agreement requiring that
underwear be kept on at all times. Another Edinburgh company requires that the
kilt be dry-cleaned prior to its return. Even though all companies dry-clean
kilts before they are rented out again, this was not enough; at this company
employees objected to handling a returned kilt even for the limited purpose of
sending it out to the cleaners.

This new campaign is being fought under the banner of “hygiene,”
a favourite rallying call of the nanny state that Scotland has sadly become.
One store manager said: “From a personal point of view, I certainly would wear
underwear with a hire kilt for my own hygienic reasons and most hire companies
do encourage it….”…

Globe
and Mail 2013:In recent years, some Scottish
kilt-for-hire companies have taken to imposing restrictions – specifically,
customers are forbidden to (as it’s said) “go regimental,” which means
following the ancient custom of wearing nothing under the kilt. One kilt-maker
has written a clause into the lease agreement requiring that underwear be worn
at all times. Another Edinburgh company requires that the kilt be dry cleaned
before its return. Even though kilt-rental companies already dry clean their
kilts before renting them out again, this was not enough; at this company, some
employees apparently objected to handling a returned kilt even for the limited
purpose of sending it to the dry cleaners.

The
campaign against “going regimental” is fought under the banner of “hygiene,” a
favourite rallying cry of the nanny state. One store manager in Scotland said:
“From a personal point of view, I certainly would wear underwear with a hire
kilt for my own hygienic reasons, and most hire companies do encourage it.” …

National
Post 2010:The kilt originated
as 16th-century battle dress. Made of worsted wool, it originally included a
cloak draped over the shoulder, as well as the more familiar short (or
“walking”) kilt. After the defeat of the Scots fighting for Bonnie Prince
Charles at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, and the subsequent pursuit and
butchery of highlanders by the savage Duke of Cumberland, the wearing of tartan
or kilt was considered a sign of Jacobite sympathy and outlawed. Only
gradually, about three decades later, did the hairy knee slowly make its
reappearance in the drawing rooms of polite Scottish society.

The tradition of wearing nothing beneath the kilt is also an
ancient and honourable one, just the kind that modernists detest. In the First
World War, regimental inspections of the Black Watch included walking over a
mirror to ensure against cheating; an officer then found with underwear was
fined a bottle of port.

Globe
and Mail 2013:The kilt originated as
16th-century battledress. Made of worsted wool, it originally included a cloak
draped over the shoulder, as well as the more familiar short (or “walking”)
kilt. After the defeat of the Scots fighting for Bonnie Prince Charles at the
Battle of Culloden in 1746, and the subsequent pursuit and butchery of
Highlanders by a savage Englishman, the Duke of Cumberland, the wearing of
tartan or kilt was considered to be a sign of Jacobite sympathy, and it was
outlawed. Only gradually, about three decades later, did the hairy knee slowly
make its reappearance in the drawing rooms of polite Scottish society.

The
tradition of wearing nothing beneath the kilt is also an ancient and honourable
one, just the kind that modernists despise. In the First World War, regimental
inspections of the Black Watch included walking over a mirror to ensure against
cheating; an officer found wearing underwear was fined one bottle of port.

National
Post 2010:The tale is told that as one highland regiment marched into a
Scottish village, a woman watching from the sidelines turned to her neighbour
and inquired: “Tell me, is there anything worn under the kilt?” To which one
marching soldier called out: “Nay, lassie, dinna fret — it’s all in good
workin’ order”

Globe
and Mail 2013:The tale is told… that, as one
Highland regiment marched into a Scottish village, a woman watching from the
sidelines turned to her neighbour and sweetly asked: “Tell me, is there
anything worn under the kilt?” To which a marching soldier, on overhearing her,
called out: “Nay, lassie, dinna fret – it’s all in good workin’ order.”

Friday, April 26, 2013

The Globe and Mail’s André Picard has had to climb
down from his claim that singer Rita MacNeil died from an infection
contracted in hospital.

“As
strong as Ms. MacNeil was, she couldn’t survive routine, minor surgery in a
Canadian hospital. That realization should give us all a sickening feeling in
the pit of our stomachs,” he had written.

“As strong as MacNeil was?” The wonderful Cape Breton winger was strong in spirit, no doubt.But a bit of an odd statement, given that Picard would be aware of the health problems
related to obesity and has even previously suggested“intervention” for children who are “sickeningly
over-nourished and suffering from the life-threatening health problems that are
caused by extreme obesity”.

Here are the appended notes at the top and bottom of the
column:

Correction: Rita MacNeil was
admitted to hospital for abdominal surgery. Among other things, she suffered an
infection before her death. She did not acquire the infection in the hospital,
according to senior medical officials of the Cape Breton District Health
Authority. A Friday news column incorrectly said she contracted an infection in
hospital after surgery.

ADDENDUM: An earlier version of
this column stated cited singer Rita MacNeil as an example of the many
Canadians who die from hospital-acquired infections. That was incorrect. Her
death was not caused by a hospital-acquired infection.

Update: To his credit, Picard quickly tweeted the correction. Kudos for that.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

A Margaret Wente column often opens with an anecdote about a ‘friend’
like “Ben” or “Jim”, or maybe something about her hubby.Sometimes it seems like a formula that sets
the reader up to believe that what follows comes from her own insights and
experience.Often
though, the body of the article seems to mirror other columns - frequently
including quotes from the same experts.At othertimes, the
columns smell more strongly of plagiarism.

In
another context, I was reading something by Mark Bauerlein, and remembered that
Ms. Wente had mentioned him.Google turned
up a 2009
articlethat
opens with recollections about her university glory days (when profs hung out
with undergrads smoking dope and talking Blake).But things have changed, and now elitist professors
‘sip sherry’, working just a few hours a week, and take “six months off each year to do as they please”. I checked out the
column, and (again) found what seem to be attribution problems (others can decide whether the ‘p’ word applies).Here’s the first problem – which looks like another mis-identified quote
(emphasis mine throughout).

Wente:Richard Vedder, a leading U.S.
critic, has argued that thehigher
education system has pawned off the responsibility of educatingstudents"in favour of pursuing a
whole lot of self-interested research (which the majority of undergraduates are
not involved in) that for the most part, doesn't matter."

Daniel
L. Bennett, September 4, 2009:Meanwhile, graduates will be unequipped to compete in the global
economy due to a
higher education systemthatpawned
off the responsibility of educating them in favor of pursuing a whole lot
of self-interested research (which the majority of undergraduates are not
involved in) that for the most part, doesn't matter.

While the blog on which these words appeared is associated with
Vedder, the article appears to be by Bennett.(Note also the partial quotation marks - a common practice for Wente.)

Then there’s this bit where Wente describes how humanities profs
spend too much time on irrelevant research.

Wente:Take my old stomping ground,
English Lit. When last I looked, nobody was clamouring for another book on Moby-Dick . Yetas demand goes down, supply goes
up. Over the past five decades, the "productivity" of scholars in the
fields of languages and literature has increased from approximately 13,000
publications to 72,000 a year.Who
reads them? For the most part, hardly anyone. "The system has reached
absurd proportions," writes Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at
Emory University…

So Margaret,
thinking back on her college days, ‘looked’ at recent research, noticed an
excess of Moby Dick scholarship, and produced stats showing that as “demand goes down, supply goes up”?

In her column, Mark Bauerlein is introduced in a supporting
role at the end of the paragraph to discuss student retention and buttress what
we assume are Wente’s words and ideas.

So here’s
Mark Bauerlein in his own words:“Demand goes down and supply goes up”, he
wrote on page 11 of a paper called "Professors
on the Production Line, Students on Their Own".And what example did Bauerlein use for this observation?Moby Dick. He asks how many critical readings
of Melville’s classic are needed, later adding: “Nobody off-campus declared, “We
don’t have enough books on Walt Whitman…”. (These are the kinds of things a
professor might expect a student to attribute).

And then
there’s the almost identical sentence from Bauerlein’s article in The Chronicle
of Higher Education (presumably the result of his own humanities 'research') that
Wente neglects to enclose in quotes or otherwise attribute to him:

Wente:Over
the past five decades, the "productivity" of scholars in the fields
of languages and literature has increased from approximately 13,000
publications to 72,000 a year.

After
mentioning Vedder again, Wente wraps up with a punchy conclusion.She says reform won’t happen until “students
count for more than articles in unread quarterlies”.By some amazing coincidence, the
conclusion(page 24) of Mark Bauerlein’s
paper reads:“Students count more than articles
in quarterlies”.

Now
this isn’t as bad as those other
examples, but again:would these
practices constitute plagiarism for a university student - now, or in Ms.
Wente’s day? Especially, if they’re a
kind of, you know, habit?And lest we
think this is all in the past, there aremorerecentexamplesof attribution problems to go along withmanysimilarinstances and the dozen or so Editor’s Notes over the last couple of years.

Yes, teaching
is important, and there are probably always a few lazy professors – just like
there are a few lazy journalists for whom a different set of standards might apply.In The Ryerson Review of Journalism’s cover storyon the Wente plagiarism affair, another scribe is
quoted saying, “and the second message…was the sense that
there was a double standard, that there was one rule for a famous columnist and
another for the rest of us.” (Perhaps some of them are thinking about this
recentlyannounced “voluntary
separation” program).

But
the last word on plagiarism and teaching should go to Ms. Wente herself, who wrote:
“Teachers
are told to give a pass to students who are caught plagiarizing…Kids aren't
dumb. When they see…slackers and cheaters getting away with it, they're getting
a values lesson they'll never forget.”

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Maybe
Ms. Wente could hire "Linda"
or (one of the other unemployed BAs regularly featured in her columns) to give
them a quick once over. If the UPI report is to believed, there looks to be another little problem with quotes here.

Margaret
Wente:Warren Buffett doesn’t think so, either.
“The modern slot machine is one of the best ways to remove money from suckers
known to man,” the legendary investor, who opposed casinos in his home state of
Nebraska (and won), told reporters during an annual shareholders meeting. “It’s a terrible way to raise money. … It’s
a tax on ignorance. I don’t like the idea of the government depending, for
certain portions of its revenue, on hoodwinking citizens.”

Al
Swanson, UPI:"It's a terrible way to
raise money," Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire
Hathaway, told 19,500 shareholders in Omaha this month. "It's a tax on
ignorance. ... I don't like the idea of government depending, for certain
portions of its revenue, on hoodwinking citizens."

Berkshire Hathaway
Vice Chairman Charlie Munger called the modern slot machine "one of the
best ways to remove money from suckers known to man."

Update: Not sure when it happened, but another correction
has been appended to Margaret Wente’s column to address the quotation error
noted above. I think that makes 12 (though
there are likely the same number that haven’t been addressed). It reads:

Correction: Thursday print
edition and earlier online versions of this column incorrectly attributed a
quote to Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett. In fact, the statement
“The modern slot machine is one of the best ways to remove money from suckers
known to man” was made by Berkshire Hathaway vice-chairman Charlie Munger.